


How to be a Heartbreaker

by Tallulah



Category: Battle Royale (Manga), Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, Character Death, Dubious Consent, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Friendship, Moral Dilemmas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-01
Updated: 2017-01-01
Packaged: 2018-09-14 00:49:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 8,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9149311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tallulah/pseuds/Tallulah
Summary: District Three puts forward its latest tributes. Shinji and Chisato try to figure out what they're willing to do in order to survive.





	1. Reaping

Shinji always managed to keep it together at the Reapings. Okay, so everyone had to, more or less, but a lot of the younger kids cried and even when it was his first one he'd been determined he wasn’t going to do that. Besides, the odds were in his favour. He had his name in the hat only once each year. Mum and Dad weren’t budging on that, though Shinji kind of figured that was more because only _poor_ people had to sign their kids up multiple times…

He’d always managed to keep it together. Stand next to Yutaka and whisper jokes to him, because Yutaka always looked like he was going to throw up on his own feet. Clap him on the shoulder when their names weren’t picked and say, _Sorry, little buddy, guess your career as a stone-cold killing machine’s gonna have to wait._ Yutaka’s name was in there double the number that his was. Shinji mainly tried not to think about this. He’s trying not to think about it right now. The air’s chilly and his hands are cold and he’s clenching and unclenching his fists and rocking back and forth on his feet and pretending it’s because he’d much rather be in the square throwing a ball around. It’s a lie. He doesn’t want to be in the square at all.

(He’d been in Uncle’s bar when the Peacekeepers had come. One minute drinking sugar water and telling some dull story about how the guy leading his shift on the factory floor thought someone was stealing his lunch. He’s still in the middle of a sentence when they break down the door. He should’ve just stayed put. Uncle yelled at him to stay there but he was stupid then and so he sprinted after them as they dragged Uncle away. Down to the square. God knows why. He’d known even as he was running that this wasn’t something he wanted to look at.)

“You okay?” Yutaka whispers to him.

Shinji wants to say _sure I am_ but he maybe doesn’t want to open his mouth right now. Just in case. He’s not gonna _be_ sick but he does feel kind of queasy. He shrugs. Yutaka is saying that if they do call his name his feet’ll be so cold he won’t be able to walk up there. 

“If you get picked,” Shinji hisses at him, “I’m stopping coming to this square, it’s clearly got it in for me.”

(There’d been a bunch of people brought there, people who’d got their names on a list somewhere. It was a riot on the other side of the city, it wasn’t anything to do with their street or their assembly line, but the powers that be wanted to do a sweep. It had happened so fast Shinji felt like he was still telling his stupid story even when he was standing on the edge of the square and there was a volley of shots, like a second’s worth, and all the people were crumpled on the ground. Shinji had locked solid like a little kid, just been thinking _but not him though, not him, not him, he can’t just die like that, not him_ and when someone had pulled him away he’d gone with it. The shots and then all the birds flurrying into the air like black grain being spilled from a sack.)

The girl is being drawn. _Chisato Matsui._ Shinji knows her a little, they were at school together. Seemed a nice girl. Kind of cute, though not really his type. Right now she’s dead white and when she starts to walk her legs are shaking so much he wonders if she’s gonna make it to the podium. God, she won’t last a minute in the arena. Second name being drawn. For one moment he’s thinking what the hell will he do if it is Yutaka, who will also not last a minute in the arena and is actually his friend and whose death will really fucking suck –

The name ringing out into the square isn’t Yutaka’s. 

It’s his.

The thing is that you can think _not me, not me, not me_ all you want, but it doesn’t change anything. And maybe you should take more time to think about the worst happening, because it's what feels like hours before he can make himself start walking, and he can feel the half-smile he was wearing still on his face, and the second part of the joke – that clearly the square is cursed for him – still in his mouth.


	2. Mentor

Of all the shitty things about winning the Hunger Games – and there are a _lot_ of them – Kawada hadn't even thought about this one. 

Not only does he go back to the arena every night in nightmares that are ten times as effective for being true, not only does everyone side-eye him for the way he embraced brutal, efficient murder, not only did his dad get shot by the Peacekeepers for being stupid enough to protest his son being chosen, not only is he alive and Keiko dead – but this year and every year after that he's got to go back to the fucking Capitol with two more terrified kids and...

Well, and what exactly? They tell you that you're supposed to mentor them, talk them through what to expect and the best strategies for winning, pretend like they've got a hope in hell of surviving. He's been the only District Three winner for twenty-odd years and his predecessor hanged herself a week after he came home from his Games. No magic formula. No secret weapon. Keep running. Try not to die. Pray that when it comes it'll be quick.

Not that he said that to these two. He didn't even want to look at them, to be honest. Was all set to be dismissive – why should he pretend this is a _game_ that you can _win_ when it's a fucking slaughterhouse? – and then on one of their conversations where they sit around and pretend to be mentor and tributes, Matsui asked the question: 

_I know you said I'm just a... a terrified girl and... okay, I know I'm not going to – to win. So... so have you got any tips for not... not going crazy? Not... just crying your eyes out? Mimura's going to be fine but I'd... I'd like for people back home to think I... to think I did all right._

And she'd been crying a hell of a lot but now she's pulling herself together and she must know she's dead already and so he told her the truth. A truth. _Best way to not go crazy is to come up with a plan._ He made it sound like he was imparting real wisdom rather than obvious tips every tribute will pick up. _Get the basics in order. Forget trying to pick a new skill up from scratch. Though it's worth taking the chance to practise with a few standard weapons so you don't kill yourself with them in-game. Survival skills. Food. Water. First aid._ He told her, _You were good in school, right?_ and she nodded. _So cram for it like it's a test._ She's still screwed. But she's got a point. If you've got something to cling to, that's better than nothing.

(It's not enough. He thought it was enough. Shogo Kawada and Keiko Onuki, the star-crossed lovers of District Three, in each other's arms in clothes made of light. Clinging onto each other. Like somehow love would lift them up and keep them safe. Bullshit.)

Mimura knows it's bullshit. 

Mimura fancies himself a winner, Kawada's pretty sure. Got that look to him. Clever, well-off, healthy, popular, hit with the ladies. Figures he can make people love him. Figures the Games will come easy to him just like everything else has. That's bullshit, too, but Kawada can cut him some slack on it. He was the same, more or less.

Could Mimura be a winner?

Not impossible. District Three isn't Career-level, but they've not done badly. Okay, they haven't _won_ in years but they've come damn close on more'n a few occasions. Mimura's no Career and there's no telling whether he'll come off as likeably confident or unlikeably arrogant, but there are ways round this. There are ways to play the game.

He could make this a project. At least one of the two would make it back, and everyone in Three would have more food for a month than they knew what to do with. And there'd be someone else to talk the talk and walk the walk and coach the next pair of cattle through the motions. 

And play the fucking game. 

On the other hand, he hates himself enough already. This can't make it worse, right?


	3. Interview

Chisato's dress is soft silver, like mist. She saw herself in the mirror and thought she looked like a lost little ghost girl. Her hair's loose (though they've done stuff to it to make it all shiny and sleek) and the make-up is soft smears of sparkle. Bits of glitter sewn into the dress catch the light. 

Mum and Dad will like it, at least. Think she looks pretty and sweet. _Our little girl._ Maybe tomorrow, when she's in the arena, maybe tomorrow she'll die so quickly it won't even show up on camera and they'll get to remember her like this. Sweet and sparkling and maybe even pretty. 

She doesn't feel sweet. 

And right now she doesn't actually feel scared, either.

Across the room, Kawada's talking to Mimura. Again. They talk a lot. About the Games, about the arena, about what to watch out for, about what Kawada can and can't do to help. Oh, sure, it's not like Kawada hasn't talked to Chisato. He's drilled both of them on what to remember about survival and hunting and looking for water, how to deal with wounds and burns, signs of dehydration and frostbite. But that's all she's getting. There's no plan for her. Neither of them think she's going to make it past the fight at the Cornucopia, do they? And neither of them are interested in changing that. 

She doesn't feel scared. She is _angry_. So angry she doesn't even want to look at them. It's not like she thinks they're wrong, but there isn't any reason actually why she should be _happy_ to go along with their plan, is it? 

Mimura talks to her like he knows she thinks he's great, like the fact she's going to die so he can live isn't going to change that. Well, Chisato doesn't... she doesn't actually see why she should just let it happen. 

A storm of clapping. Caesar Flickerman's interview with the boy from District Two has just finished. Cold-eyed, unsmiling, answered everything with a level, flat voice. Chisato can imagine him looking her in the eye and then ramming a knife through her chest. That will probably actually _happen_ , tomorrow. It will happen and she will be dead and there won't even be a reason for it. 

She's walking onstage. Her hands are all sweaty and the lights are so hot, it feels like all the glittery make-up is going to melt off of her. She's sitting down, giving Caesar Flickerman a nervous little smile. _Nervous is fine,_ her stylist said to her. _It'll look right. And your partner's so confident... such a great contrast..._

Caesar is asking her how she likes the Capitol.

“It's beautiful,” she's saying. “I feel like I'm in Heaven. I wish my friends could see it.” The thought of Yukie and Satomi and the others makes her smile for real, and she finds herself looking up to the cameras and giving a little grin and a wave to them. “The food is amazing here – Yuka, you'd love it!” The audience laughs a bit and Caesar says, “Sounds like you're a popular girl?” She's blushing now, saying how she wouldn't say exactly that but there's a big group of them who all hung out together at school and work on the same production line now. “They all came and said goodbye to me when I... when I was picked.” Bother, she can feel herself welling up again. Yuko with tears pouring down her face saying _I'll pray for you every **second** , okay?_ Satomi scowling furiously and clutching her hands and saying over and over, _You can do this, you can be all right, you can figure it out._ Yukie just hugging her, squeezing her tight and stroking her back.

And Yuka saying...

“One of them, she's a little boy-crazy. She said at least I was going to get to spend a lot of time with the cutest guy in District Three!” She's blushing, but that's all right. And, yes, _yes_ , Caesar is nodding and giving her a sideways smile and saying, “Oh yes? Quite a heartthrob, our Shinji Mimura?”

Chisato looks down at her silver nails, fiddles with her hair a little. She can't play it as a joke. She knows how these things are meant to go. She mumbles, “Uh-huh.” 

“You don't sound very sure!”

“Well... um... actually, it was really difficult to... to hear her say that. Because... because actually...” She can feel it. Everyone listening. “Okay, no one knows, you see. I... I was going to tell him after the Reaping. Because I'd be in my best dress and... I thought...” She is so red she thinks she's going to burn up from it but it doesn't matter, this isn't about a stupid crush, this is about maybe saving her life and at the very least making Mimura realise that he doesn't control everything around him. Deep breath. 

She raises her head and looks round, straight at him and tries to pretend this is in the schoolyard or the square back home and that the hot light is just the sun. He's watching her, frowning. 

“Mimura, I... I was going to tell you. I really... I really like you. Would you... would you be my...” 

The words dry up in her mouth but it doesn't matter. His eyes have widened. The audience has drawn breath in a soft _aaaah_. 

“I'm so sorry,” she whispers, and the buzzer signalling her time is up goes.


	4. Alliance

Shinji's on autopilot. Someone who's like him but not him standing up to walk to centre stage. Chisato is passing him, coming back to her seat. Tear-stained and sparkling. She looks at him and he thinks he sees a smug smile on her face, just for a moment.

_You bitch._

_You devious, manipulative bitch._

He's sitting opposite Caesar, shaking his head, making out he's stunned but pleased. “Wow. Wow, Caesar, you'll have to excuse me, I... I seriously don't know what to say right now. I just had no idea.” They like a good story. They like a good story. He can't think. He can't brush this off. Chisato looks as fragile as a cobweb in that dress. He lets her down – even easy – he'll be the love rat. The player. The one who deserves a gleefully ironic death, struck down in the heart of his arrogance. 

“Sounds like you've got a lot of ladies who are rooting for you to make it home! Does sweet little Chisato have a prayer? What do you say?” And Caesar is gesturing to her, and she's gazing at him, tears in her eyes, and the audience are even cheering _Yes! Say yes!_ and it's the person who's like him but not him who says, “Chisato, I... I never knew you... you felt that way. God, if I had, I'd have said something to you long ago.” And this person is standing up, now, striding across to where she's sitting, pulling her to her feet, and kissing her on her silver-painted lips. Shinji isn't doing this. Shinji is watching them both and wanting to pretend none of this is happening.

When he sits back down again and they're on to the District Four tributes – neither of whom look particularly happy about having to follow that onslaught of romance – he takes Chisato's hand, squeezes it, and she gives a happy little sigh and moves closer to him.

They hold hands all the way back up to the District Three apartments. They don't say anything. Kawada and Kamon meet them there. Both of them look like they know exactly how much of a sham this was: Kamon congratulating them on their stellar performance and stroking Chisato's hair; Kawada raising an eyebrow and telling them, _nicely played_. Shinji makes nice with them, too. Puts his arm round Chisato's shoulders and squeezes her and says, “I reckon we've got a story now. They were eating it up out there, huh?” Kamon chuckles and says that if Chisato can show some skin out in the arena then the two of them might actually have a prayer. All through dinner Shinji can barely taste the food. His and Chisato's stylists chatter on about how romantic the scene was, how perfect the two of them looked together. 

Eventually, he tugs her towards his room. “This is our first and last night together. I don't think I can bear to be parted from you.” She's not stupid enough to believe him. There's fear in her eyes as she follows him. 

The room is almost completely dark. He leads her by the hands, pulls her to sit down on the edge of the bed next to him, leans forward, and, in the hum of the air-con and the smell of perfume and clean sheets, whispers, “And what the hell did you think you were playing at, back there?”

He feels her tense, but she doesn't pull away. 

“It doesn't make any difference to you,” she whispers. “Everyone loves you already. You'll be fine.”

Shinji nearly loses it then, nearly starts shouting at her about how just because he's who he is and just because he might have a _shot_ at winning doesn't mean it's a dead cert and _certainly_ doesn't mean the next couple of weeks aren't going to hurt. He doesn't, though, because he thinks if he says it out loud then he might crack up.

“I'll probably get killed straight off tomorrow,” she says, voice almost steady. “Then you won't need to worry any more. Because you... you wouldn't have done anyway, would you? You and Kawada always figured there was no point trying to keep me alive.”

So she's basically admitted she's manipulating him into protecting her. He _could_ abandon her. He could abandon her and risk it. But he'll need sponsors out there. And you only get sponsored if people think you have a real chance of winning; or if people feel sorrier for you than for most of the others; or people want to keep you alive because they think you'll do something interesting. And without this love story, can he really gamble on having any of those? She even made him spend most of his interview talking about her...

“Well,” he says, “now I'm going to have to.”

Or at least make it look like he cares.

In the meantime, it's less than twelve hours til they're on their way to the Games, Chisato practically threw herself at him, and it's entirely likely he'll never get laid again. 

He's tilting her face up, kissing her. She tastes of weird Capitol make-up. A little gasp against his mouth. “I... Mimura, I haven't ever...”

He's scared. He is scared. Doesn't she get that he's as clueless as her in this place, that odds are they'll both be dead this time tomorrow? 

“Doesn't matter,” he's whispering back, his hand down the front of her wispy dress. “I know what to do.” And she wanted this, right? She forced him into this, she can hardly have thought it was just hand-holding. “And we might never get to... I mean, I don't know about you, but I'm...” Another kiss. “I'm not gonna let the Careers catch me with my pants down... so this is our last chance...”

That makes her laugh and even though she's still trembling, she does let him keep kissing her, and lets him do other things too. Fine. She's not the only one who can fake romance, and he doesn't need to have the cameras on him.


	5. Cornucopia

It turns out that you can be so scared that you stop feeling anything and you stop _noticing_ anything. Chisato thinks if she does make it home she's going to have to watch the footage of the start of the Games because she doesn't know what happened in a lot of it. 

Sitting with her stylist, waiting, and all at once she's doubling over and being sick. After she tried so hard to be brave. It brings tears to her eyes. At least they already tied her hair back –

Standing on the platform and rising up into the arena and still thinking that this can't really be happening.

Numbers counted down. She's looking at the sky. It's bright blue and the sun's already up. She is remembering that when she was little she liked to pretend she could fly.

_Three. Two. One._

She's running. She's running so hard her knees ache and it's not fast enough. Someone is coming after her and all around her there's nothing but field and she's sobbing as she runs but it doesn't matter –

Someone yells her name. Mimura. She looks round and the boy who was chasing her, from District Five, she thinks, is lying on his front with a knife sticking out of his back. Mimura is very pale. It makes Chisato remember that time Yuka cut her thumb open and Yuko stared at it and went whiter and whiter and then suddenly just crumpled. Yuko always hated the Games. Yuko always hates the Games. Yuko will be watching this one and Mimura just killed someone –

“ _Chisato!_ ”

Sudden cool, stony darkness. The caves. Chisato doesn't remember coming into the caves but she remembers following Mimura through them. Their footsteps echo but there's the dripping of water. Mimura makes her walk and walk for ages. “Let's get as far away from that entrance as possible. Buy us some time.” He looks tired and he's talking to her like he doesn't care what she thinks, like he's angry with her. On the other hand if he were really angry with her he could just pull out another of the throwing knives and stab her.

They walk until her legs are shaking and then finally Mimura says they can stop. There's water dripping from the ceiling, from the long teeth of rock hanging above them. Chisato's clutching a bag. She doesn't remember picking it up but when she opens it, it turns out to be a sleeping bag. Mimura's got the set of knives and over his shoulder he has another bag. There's a bottle in it and he fills the bottle from the dripping water. 

“No food, though,” he says. And, “I didn't want to push my luck. Saw the knives and got this on the way.” Chisato nods. Kawada said to him, on the train, to try his luck with the knives. She can remember resting her arms on the concrete balcony of her apartment and watching him scoring goals in the yard below with all the other guys. He never missed.

She's not going to cry. Grits her teeth. 

“You get much of a look at the terrain?” Mimura says. They're sitting together now, huddled under the sleeping bag. The caves are chilly and already Chisato can't stop shivering, though the side of her that's against him is warm. She really wants to come up with something useful to say but she doesn't remember much of it. Doesn't matter. Mimura is already speaking. “I couldn't see much but fields. We'd be sitting ducks out there. I dunno, maybe they want us to play the whole thing out underground.” He says, “Which is all well and good but if you get cornered down here... or they might flood it or something, wouldn't put it past them. I don't want to risk going up into the fields yet, though. I'm betting the Careers are staking that out, taking down anyone they find. Then they'll come into the caves after that.”

“After us,” Chisato hears herself say, like this isn't a big deal.

“Food's a problem, too,” Mimura is saying. “Can't eat rocks. I don't know, maybe there's moss or something... but more likely they'll want us to go back above ground.”

There's silence, just the sound of the water. Chisato wishes she knew what to say. She's never dated anyone before, she's never even kissed a boy before and now – she can't stop thinking about Mimura's legs stretched out next to hers, the way he's nervously licking his lips, the warmth and leanness of his arms. 

“Thank you for saving me,” she says.

She feels him tense against her.

“He was, what, thirteen?” he says. “I... I thought, I thought it wouldn't actually hit. I thought _I don't know what the hell I'm doing. Maybe it'll scare him. He's such a kid. He'll cut and run when he realises someone is gunning for him._ I guess I was kidding myself I wouldn't actually have to do it. Kill someone.”

He's looking down at her, and his eyes are cold.

“But I had to, didn't I?” he says, and there's a sharp edge to his voice. “Because I couldn't lose you.”

Chisato swallows and she wants to say, _I'm sorry_. She hadn't meant it to turn out like that. She hadn't thought, really, that if she was going to live it would be because everyone else was dead. Well, she had, but she hadn't known what it meant. Not until she looked round and saw the boy crumpling with the knife in his back.

_We're playing the game – we're playing –_

She's shuddering and if she carries on thinking like this she might go mad and so she leans up and kisses Mimura, wraps her arms round him. He's kissing back, leaning into her, and she thinks that maybe he can't be that angry after all.


	6. Pictures

Chisato's asleep. Shinji doesn't know what time it is, though he thinks he's gone past tiredness and into numb. His stomach's growling, as well. Doesn't matter. They can hold out for a while without food. Time enough they'll need to go above ground. No way are they going to be allowed to hide out here snuggling together all game.

(He screwed up. He should have, he should have told her to hightail it away and he'd find her later. Then she'd have been prepared and probably no one would've chased her. He wasn't going to set out to kill anyone. He was going to retaliate if anyone brought it to him but he wasn't going to just...)

It doesn't matter. It doesn't _matter_. That kid was going to die anyway. And what was Shinji supposed to do, take a principled stand right up until his head got chopped off? That was never the way he was going to play it. 

_Play the game and play the game and suck face with your Capitol-approved girlfriend and, seriously, is there anything you won't do to save your own skin?_

He answers the thoughts back, _c'mon, I'm no good to anyone dead, and she's playing the game just as much as me, and she was a good lay, know what I'm saying? I could hardly say no, not when it might've been my last night alive..._

He glances over at her,watches her breathe, wishes he hadn't. Small, freckled, someone's little sister. She doesn't even know how much she's playing. That's the worst of it. If she'd been like one of those psycho bitches from District One or Two, someone who'd do whatever in order to win, then he wouldn't have minded. They'd have been using each other with no illusions. As it is, he has no idea who's using who right now. She made him kill for her. But maybe she didn't. Maybe he'd have killed anyway, maybe he's just using her as an excuse. And, hell, come endgame – if Careers, the rest of the tributes, starvation, natural disasters, engineered disasters, or genetically modified killer bees don't get them first, he's gonna have to – let's not beat around the bush here, he's going to have to literally stab her in the back in order to go home, and home will not be where the heart is once all his neighbours have seen him cold-bloodedly murder sweet little Chisato Matsui who loved him so much.

Kawada had got lucky, the way it had played out for him. He'd said in his interviews he was going to protect his girlfriend and fellow tribute Keiko Onuki no matter what. Okay, it had also helped he turned out to be really good at hacking people to death. So he'd hunted people down while Keiko, who'd fled the scene at the Cornucopia, was hiding out in one of the abandoned tenement buildings on the outskirts of the arena. Now, they'd shown Kawada calling for her, and they'd shown her keeping hidden, but who knew whether that had really been the way it went down? Kawada had found the remainder of the Career pack hiding out in another block and he'd managed to set the whole thing on fire using some short-circuiting and miscellaneous crap he found. Only thing was, the fire had spread – probably helped by the Gamemakers – and Keiko had got caught in it too. So Kawada got to go home and keep public opinion on his side due to his tragic loss.

Shinji hadn't asked, during the run-up to these games, how much of this romance had been an act and how big a problem it had really been that he'd accidentally set his girlfriend on fire. Now it seems like that might've been an oversight.

_Well, that's the situation. Lay out the options, see where it gets you._ He can vow to protect Chisato to the end and then – if they get that far – kill her to get himself home. He can decide even he can't be that cruel (though, what, is he really prepared to die for her?) and kill himself. 

Those aren't the only two options.

If he's going to – _if_ he's going to take a shot at winning this (and he's killed one person already and it wasn't so difficult, he could do this, if it's them or you then it's understandable) why play the drama out to the end? Why not stick by her just until an opportunity presents itself to not save her at a crucial time?

_Because it's a pretty terrible way to treat a girl, even for you?_

Fuck it. She put him into this situation. She thought she could trust him. Why the hell is he playing along? This is the fucking Hunger Games, he owes her nothing. He could just _go_. Either tell her when she wakes up, or just walk away now. Why play this out any longer?

_You don't exactly come off looking like the hero, though. Which means no sponsors. Which means the odds are dramatically less in your favour._

He rests his chin on his hands, watches his breath cloud in front of him. _Okay, try this thought experiment._ What if it wasn't a boy and a girl picked, but just two random kids? What if it had ended up him and Yutaka as the tributes from Three? _Doubt you'd be looking to throw him to the wolves at the first opportunity._ God knows what he would be doing, of course. Dying for your best friend's all very well but could he really take that step into nothingness even for someone he actually gives a damn about? You can spin it as a noble action all you want but you'll still be dead at the end of it, won't be there to hear people saying how selfless you were and how meaningful your death was. To you, it'll be all the same. 

The national anthem starts blaring out, echoing through the caves. Chisato is scrambling awake, rubbing her eyes. Shinji looks round, wondering how he's supposed to know the tally if they're going to project the kill counts onto the sky – _maybe if you're cowardly enough to hide in the caves you don't get to find out –_ but then there's a faint hum and he sees, coming towards them, something trailing light. A drone or something. It stops, and the slideshow of losers is projected onto the ceiling. Fourteen dead, now. Left apart from them, there's the Careers and a handful of others who were presumably smart enough to run away. 

The drone sits in the middle of the passageway playing its ghost faces over and over again. Practically a beacon advertising that they're hiding out here. He prods Chisato. “Come on. Let's move.” She blinks, but she scrambles to her feet, starts rolling up the sleeping bag. The music stops playing, and the drone's slide show switches off. It buzzes away, into the darkness.


	7. Endgame

Yutaka hates watching the Games. It's not quite as bad as Reaping Day itself but it's definitely not far off. You can't even make jokes about what you're seeing, all you can do is feel terrible for the kids onscreen and pray and pray it won't be you there next year. So he watches when his mum makes him, and while the District Three tributes are still alive so he can't get called on for being unpatriotic, and makes his excuses the rest of the time.

You can't do that when it's your best friend, though. So this time he puts the TV on every morning to check for updates and he stands watching while he eats lunch and then he switches it on again when he finally gets home after his shift. Chisato Matsui's friends, he knows, are all assembling at one of their houses each night, turning it into a sleepover. Yukie Utsumi asked him if he wanted to come, but he'd figured they probably didn't want him around – firstly, he was a guy, even if he was a titchy goofy one, and secondly, it was entirely likely they were gonna see his best friend and their best friend fighting it out at some point, and then things would just be horribly awkward. Actually they'd be a lot worse than that but he's trying not to think about it.

He sees Mimura throw the knife at that kid in the first few minutes and he can hardly believe he didn't dream it, and yet it's exactly what you'd expect from him: agile, confident, practical. Yutaka wonders what exactly he's going to do if Mimura turns into a wannabe-Career and murders everyone he sees, but then he and Matsui are cuddling in the caves together and so Yutaka figures it might be all right, for a little while longer at least. He doesn't know what to think about the two of them suddenly falling in love. Mimura has always acted as though proper lovey-dovey we're-sweethearts-going-to-get-married romance is not only something he's not interested in but something he finds faintly bizarre, like a weird secret society tradition. And he could hardly turn her down on national TV. Mimura and Yutaka don't exactly talk about their love lives (not least because Yutaka doesn't have one). Mostly Mimura's flirting with girls who just want to flirt right back. There've been some other girls, girls who thought he really cared. Yutaka has always tried not to think about this, too, because he thinks if he was in love with someone who was just stringing him along then he'd feel like leaping off the roof when the truth came out, and he doesn't want to think of Mimura as someone who'd make you feel that way.

The two of them stay in the caves for the best part of another day. They don't talk much. They do a lot of kissing. Yutaka finds himself blushing like that's the most important thing. At work, he hears Yukie and Satomi talking about the Games; Satomi thinks that Mimura and Matsui aren't talking because clearly Mimura just wants to enjoy himself before he dies. Yutaka wants to tell her it isn't that simple. Mimura's probably not feeling much like making small talk about sport, he has to keep any anti-Capitol remarks off the airwaves, and anything about feeling... anything, he's not going to say it out loud.

They go up to the surface eventually to scavenge food. While they're up there, there's an earthquake. One tribute is crushed to death in the caves, another trapped under a rockfall and dies a couple of days later. (Something else Yutaka tries not to think about.) Mimura and Matsui clutch each other as the ground rocks and sighs around them. They can't go back to the caves, Mimura points out, they're trapped on the surface. All around them are meadows as far as they can see. They walk. The earthquake zone ends abruptly, they step off rucked ground onto flat grass. Matsui finds leaves and berries for them to eat. Mimura teases her about how it's lucky one of them studied. Yutaka can't tell if it's friend-teasing or if he's saying it to make her think he still likes her.

Matsui breaks her leg the next day. It's during lunch and Yutaka's got a mouthful of bread at the time. The ground opens up beneath her and she falls through. The camera zooms in on Mimura and you can see he's thinking about leaving her there. 

Yutaka closes his eyes and finds himself praying _Please Mim, please, please don't_ and when he opens them again Mimura is on his knees, calling down to her. Another camera underground is panning over her pale face. It's picking up her breathing. She sounds like she's choking. Yutaka wants to close his eyes again. He wishes he had when the camera shows her leg, the bone sticking out of it. He wonders how much of a laughing-stock he'll be if he faints in the middle of the canteen. 

Mimura calls down to her is she all right. She says, _“My leg, I've hurt my leg,”_ and then starts screaming as she looks at it. Back in the canteen, one of her friends – Yuko, that's it – is sitting with her head on her knees while someone else strokes her back. Mimura doesn't get snappy. He tells Matsui to breathe, to focus on his voice, that he's coming down to get her, and climbs into the hole.

“ _I didn't think you'd come_ ,” she's saying, clutching at his hands, still gasping for breath. “ _I didn't think you'd come, I thought you'd go away –_ ”

“ _What, and show the whole country my secret claustrophobia? Come on, Matsui, I've got a reputation to keep up._ ” In the light from the surface he's staring at her leg with his eyes wide. Yutaka's glad to see he looks like he wants to shut his eyes, too. 

“ _I'm sorry, Mimura, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done it..._ ”

“ _You've got nothing to say sorry for._ ” He leans over, kisses her gently on the forehead. Yutaka looks round and sees Yukie staring at the screen, dead-white, shaking her head. She must be scared it's a goodbye kiss. Maybe it is. But Mimura just says, “ _This was the best few days of my life, being with you._ ”

Yutaka's pretty sure that's a lie all through. The camera cuts away to rising tensions among the Career pack and it doesn't go back to Mimura and Matsui until late-afternoon. The factory screen it on the lines so people can watch even though they're working. Probably because they're figuring both District Three tributes might be out of the running by this evening. Matsui's leg is bandaged up or something now, a white cloth spotted with rusty blood marks. Mimura's got a first-aid kit on his lap with a trailing silver parachute attached and Yutaka thinks, _of course, the audience likes it if he's romantic, that's why he said it._

Mimura's giving her sips of water. “ _Okay, those painkillers taken even the edge off it?_ ” Matsui smiles at him. She looks half-asleep. “ _Feel... floaty,_ ” she murmurs. 

“ _Floaty's good. You keep floating.”_

“ _They'll... they'll find us. Should... you should..._ ” 

“ _Yeah, like I want to go back to wandering around in the open. Sitting duck Mimura, that's me._ ”

“He can't leave her.” 

Yutaka looks round to see Satomi, on the line next to his, glowering at the screen.

“He can't leave her now and why should he? She's – she's going to – he just needs to wait and – there's going to be infection. He just needs to wait til that happens.”

Yutaka was going to keep his mouth shut, but the thought of Mimura sitting there and waiting for someone to die makes him feel sick and he's suddenly blurting out, “You don't know that. You don't know – people get medicine sometimes, sponsors send it –”

“Well, if I were him, I wouldn't be praying too hard for it!” Satomi yells, and Yutaka steps back a bit, Satomi never yells. “She can't even walk, no way he can get her out of that pit, but he can't just abandon her, can he, that'll send his approval rating plummeting, so he's going to wait til she dies and just leave her – lucky her, getting to play the role of his tragic girlfriend – no different from his usual operations, is it –”

Yutaka knows he shouldn't be having a shouting match on the middle of the factory floor but he feels even sicker, maybe because he sort of knows Satomi is right, and he shouts back at her, “It's not like he _chose_ for any of that to happen! It's not like he wanted any of it any more than she did!”

“Certainly thought about leaving her before, didn't he?” Satomi screams at him, and then the foreman comes over and tells them both to stop it and get back to work and Satomi needs to get control of herself or she'll be sent home. Onscreen, the Careers find the tribute from District Ten, and his capture and death takes up the rest of the afternoon.

Yukie catches up with Yutaka as he leaves the factory gates. She looks worn out, but she still manages a smile for him, like he's someone she likes and not someone whom she should probably be mad at as the nearest acceptable Mimura-substitute.

“I'm sorry,” he says. “About earlier. I mean, I... I guess this is much worse for you, girls are... I mean, it must be horrible...”

Yukie swallows and stares furiously at the pavement as they walk before she answers, “I think it's horrible for everyone. I'm... have you seen his family at all?”

Yutaka almost laughs, forgetting for a moment why they're talking. “Mimura's family pretend I don't exist. They'd rather he didn't hang out with kids who have to put their name in for Reaping a billion times. He said one time it was a bonus being friends with me because I made him laugh _and_ I pissed off his folks.”

Yukie laughs a bit at that, but then she looks sad again. “I keep thinking I should go to Chisato's house. Take her parents some food, or just... tell them I'm sorry. But I can't. I know it's going to be awful and I just... can't.”

Yutaka says, “Well, I'd find it hard as well, I'd probably not... or I'd go and then say something really dumb because I was nervous.”

They walk on for a bit in silence before Yukie says, “What you said about the medicine, about her maybe being all right. It... it was nice of you to say it but... you know it's not going to happen, right?”

Yutaka swallows, hard, before he can say, “It might. They gave them a first-aid kit...”

“The mentor decides what their tributes get, with the money they have,” Yukie says, dully. “Satomi was right – even – even if Mimura does get her out of there, she can't walk, not with a break that bad. And it's... it's just them and the Careers now. If Kawada sends her some medicine, it's just wasting money on... on someone who's going to die anyway. I don't... Mimura must have figured that out, too. If I were him, I might... I might leave her now. Satomi's upset because she wants Chisato to be okay, so that's why she was angry, but...”

She takes a deep breath, blinks hard. “Sorry, Yutaka. Just... you know whatever he does, it's not your fault, okay? And to be honest, I think almost everyone would do what they needed to survive.”

Yutaka wants to give her a hug or something, she looks so sad, he feels so sad, but all he can do is sort of smile at her and say, “Well, personally I'm praying they decide to do an even-numbers-only District Games next year.” She shakes her head, but she does smile a bit.

Back at home, his mum's still out at work doing second shift, Yutaka wraps himself in a blanket and steels himself to keep watching. The Careers are having an argument and one nearly pulls a knife on another but the others talk them down, remind them there's still the two from Three left to find. “The star-crossed lovers. Give me a break. You reckon he's ditched her yet?” The blank-faced boy who rarely talks doesn't join in. He sits sharpening some kind of sword. 

Mimura hasn't ditched her. He's sitting with her, arms round her, his head resting on hers. Yutaka thinks she might be asleep ( _or dead, oh god, please don't let her be dead_ ) but then she blinks, looks up at him. “ _Still... still here..._ ”

“ _Said it before, I'll say it again, there's nothing for me out there._ ”

“ _Boring... get bored..._ ”

“ _Excuse me? This is quality viewing. High-quality arena romance._ ” 

“ _Should've... you'd... should've been a better... a pretty girl... they'd like that then...”_ Her eyes follow him as he says, “ _You're the prettiest girl in Panem. And that's just gone on record._ ” But no silver parachutes come down this time. Not that he looks like he's expecting them. He must've worked out the same thing as Yukie. 

He gives her some more water, and she whispers, “ _Tell my mum..._ ”

“ _Tell her yourself,_ ” Mimura says, “ _she's watching._ ” Matsui laughs a little, says that she forgot about that. She drifts off to sleep for a bit then and they go back to the Careers, who have split up and are searching through the meadows, metre by metre. Yutaka realises, just for a moment, that Mimura's not going to make it home, and sits there feeling sick and hollow and wishing he had someone there who could tell him he was wrong. 

Back with them now. Matsui looks very small and very pale. Mimura's feeling her forehead, checking the bandage, which is – oh, god, it's covered in blood now. Yutaka thinks of Matsui's friend nearly fainting. _He_ thinks he might faint. Matsui stirs, whispers something to him. Her eyes don't open. Mimura stares down at her and he says, “ _No, you're not. It's the morphling, that's all,_ ” but he's not smiling. His face is cold and set. Another camera view, this one from lower down, among the rocks and roots, to the first aid kit. “ _I'm just gonna get you some more medicine, okay? Here, I'll try not to move you –”_ His hands fumbling amongst bandages and little bottles. “ _You'll feel much better in a bit. Just a sting and you'll feel much better._ ” Matsui whispers, “ _Doctor..._ ” and Mimura is saying something about how that's right, the girls always said how good he'd look in a white coat, but his face doesn't match his words. He looks as blank as that Career boy up on the surface. Yutaka finds himself thinking, _Even if he wins, it won't be him coming back –_

He sees Matsui wince and then Mimura's putting his arms round her again, saying to her, “ _There, you're gonna be fine, I told you I'd look after you._ ”

After a bit he's whispering something to her. It's one of the songs that used to play in his uncle's bar, one he sometimes hummed under his breath. Satomi, later, is furious about this, says how he couldn't resist playing the sweet attentive boyfriend to the last, just to wring the last value out of the creepy act. Yutaka isn't really up to arguing, he's barely up to talking without his voice going all wobbly, but he doesn't think that's true. Mimura liked the song. It was something, he'd said to Yutaka once, that made him think of home.

The cameras are so close that Yutaka can hear when Matsui stops breathing, even before the cannon goes off. Mimura lies her down on the rocks, gathers up the supplies strewn round them, slings the bag onto his back. Starts to climb. Satomi comments on how blank his face was, how easily he shrugged off the pretense at caring. Yutaka thinks that they only really know how Mimura looked when he was pretending to care, and maybe if it was real he wouldn't look how you expected him to. 

He's cornered by the Careers and the blank-faced boy puts the sword through his stomach before Yutaka can even start hoping there might be a miracle. One of the others cuts his throat. Yutaka doesn't tell anyone about it, but he sits by the TV, puts his hand on the warm screen, and sings that song, his voice wobbly and out of tune, having to pause every so often to rub his hand across his face. The boy who killed Mimura goes on to win, two days later.


End file.
